I was originally intending to test this with benchmarks but, after a little while, I realized that Ivy Bridge was not supported. This graphics driver starts and ends with Haswell. While I cannot verify their claims, Intel advertises up to 30% more performance in some OpenCL tasks and a 10% increase in games like Batman: Arkham City and Sleeping Dogs. They even claim double performance out of League of Legends at 1366x768.

Intel is giving gamers a "free lunch".

The driver also tunes Conservative Morphological Anti-Aliasing (CMAA). They claim it looks better than MLAA and FXAA, "without performance impact" (their whitepaper from March showed a ~1-to-1.5 millisecond cost on Intel HD 5000). Intel recommends disabling it after exiting games to prevent it from blurring other applications, and they automatically disable it in Windows, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Windows 8.1 Photo.

Adaptive Rendering Control was also added in this driver. This limits redrawing identical frames by comparing the ones it does draw with previously drawn ones, and adjusts the frame rate accordingly. This is most useful for games like Angry Birds, Minesweeper, and Bejeweled LIVE. It is disabled when not on battery power, or when the driver is set to "Maximum Performance".

The Intel Iris and HD graphics driver is available from Intel, for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, on many Haswell-based GPUs.

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I didn't know what I was getting into. When a couple of packages showed up at our office from Intel with claims that they wanted to showcase the new Haswell-E platform...I was confused. The setup was simple: turn on cameras and watch what happens.

So out of the box comes...a containment chamber. A carefully crafted, wood+paint concoction that includes lights, beeps, motors and platforms.

Want to see how Intel promotes the Core i7-5960X and X99 platform? Check out this video below.

What is new information today are specifics on the clock speeds and SKU offerings.

5Y70

5Y10a

5Y10

Cores/Threads

2/4

2/4

2/4

Base Freq

1.10 GHz

800 MHz

800 MHz

Max Single Core Turbo

2.6 GHz

2.0 GHz

2.0 GHz

Max Dual Core Turbo

2.6 GHz

2.0 GHz

2.0 GHz

Max Quad Core Turbo

N/A

N/A

N/A

Graphics

Intel HD Graphics 5300

Intel HD Graphics 5300

Intel HD Graphics 5300

Graphics Base/Max Freq

100/850 MHz

100/800 MHz

100/800 MHz

LPDDR3L Memory Speed

1600 MHz

1600 MHz

1600 MHz

L3 Cache

4MB

4MB

4MB

TDP

4.5 watts

4.5 watts

4.5 watts

Intel vPro

Y

N

N

Intel TXT

Y

N

N

Intel VT-d

Y

Y

Y

Intel VT-x

Y

Y

Y

AES-NI

Y

Y

Y

1K Pricing

$281

$281

$281

Intel has planned three options, all with the same $281 pricing, though obviously based on volume and other deals with OEMs, these are likely to shift. The Core M 5Y70 is the highest performance part with a base clock speed of 1.10 GHz that can scale up to 2.6 GHz with one or both cores active. The other two parts launching today both feature 800 MHz base clocks and 2.0 GHz maximum Turbo speeds.

With that scaling information, and the wide range that the Intel HD Graphics 5300 can hit (100-800 MHz) Intel is doubling down on the benefits of fast and reliable Turbo Boost technology to give you high frequencies only when you need it most. This conserves power consumption the vast majority of time and allows Intel's partners to build fanless designs that are incredibly thin.

The 5Y10 and 5Y10a differ only in that the non-A variant has a configurable TDP down the 4.0 watts should the vendor opt for that.

Intel is also giving us a more detailed look at the Broadwell-Y PCH that includes a lot of I/O for such a small platform. Two channels of USB 3.0 can support four total ports and as many as four SATA 6G storage units can be integrated as well. These Y-SKUs look like they have 12 lanes of PCIe 2.0 available to them should a notebook vendor decide to use PCIe storage solutions (like M.2) rather than relying purely on SATA.

At least one partner has already announced a Core M product: the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix. It appears to be an amazing 11.6-in convertible tablet design. Without a doubt we'll encouter numerous other designs at the Intel Developer Forum that starts next Tuesday.

[H]ard|OCP reviewed Intel's brand new Extreme processor, the Haswell-E i7-5960X as weill as posting a large amount of Intel's launch slides detailing the new features present in this series of CPU. As you can see from the picture they used the same funky white ASUS motherboard which Ryan used in his review but chose a Koolance EX2-755 watercooler as opposed to the Corsair H100i which allowed them to hit 4.5GHz with 1.301v CPU core voltage, slightly lower than Ryan managed. In the end, while extremely impressed by the CPU they saw little benefits to gaming and recommend this CPU to those who spend most of their time encoding video, manipulating huge images and of course those who just want the best CPU on the planet.

"There are many members of the "1366 X58 Enthusiast Overclockers Club" that have been waiting with bated breath for Intel's launch of the new X99 Express Chipset and new family of Core i7 Haswell-E processors. All this new hardware comes bundled with brand new DDR4 RAM technology packing huge bandwidth as well."

Pushing the 8 Cores

It seems like yesterday when I last talked about an AMD refresh! Oh wait, it almost was. Some weeks ago I was able to cover the latest AMD APU offerings that helped to flesh out the Kaveri lineup. We thought AMD was done for a while. Color us wrong. AMD pulled out all the stops and set up an AM3+ refresh! There is a little excitement here, I guess. I am trying to contain the tongue-in-cheek lines that I am oh-so-tempted to write.

AMD is refreshing their FX lineup in the waning days of Summer!

Let me explain the situation from my point of view. The FX lineup for AM3+ has not done a whole lot since the initial release of the Piledriver based FX-8350 and family (Vishera). Piledriver was a pretty significant update from Bulldozer as it slightly improved IPC and greatly improved power consumption (all the while helping to improve clockspeed by a small degree). There were two updates before this one, but they did not receive nearly as much coverage. These updates were the FX-6350 and the FX-9000 series. The FX-6350 is quite popular with the budget enthusiast crowd who still had not moved over to the Intel side of the equation. The FX-9000 series were OEM only initially and reaching up to $1000 at the high end. During that time since the original Vishera chips were released, we have seen the Intel Ivy Bridge and Haswell architectures (with a small refresh with Haswell with the 2nd gen products and the latest Socket 2011 units).

Though my review of the Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E processor was posted earlier today, we hosted a live stream later in the afternoon where Allyn and I talked about the launch. We were also able to welcome Matt Dunford, Princpal Evangelist at Intel to talk about his role in the Haswell-E release, the future of the platform, how DDR4 memory fits into it all and much more.

The video is embeded in the processor review now as well but I have included it separately below for those of you that want to jump straight in.

My thanks goes out to Matt from Intel for joining us on the live stream and to all the viewers that came by to submit questions and participate!

The Tech Report took the new i7-5960X, Asus X99 Deluxe, 16 GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4, a Kingston HyperX SH103S3 240GB SSD and a XFX Radeon HD 7950 DD and set it loose on the test bench. The results were impressive to say the least, especially when they moved on from games to test productivity software where the Haswell architecture really shines. When they attempted to overclock the CPU they found a hard limit feeding the processor 1.3V and running 4.4GHz, any faster would cause some applications to BSoD. On the other hand that applied to all 8 cores and the difference in performance was striking.

Also make sure to read Ryan's review to get even mroe information on this long awaited chip.

"Haswell-E has arrived. With eight cores, 20MB of cache, and quad channels of DDR4 memory, it looks to be the fastest desktop CPU in history--and not by a little bit. We've tested the heck out of it and have a huge suite of comparisons going to back to the Pentium III 800. Just, you know, for context."

Revamped Enthusiast Platform

Join us at 12:30pm PT / 3:30pm ET as Intel's Matt Dunford joins us for a live stream event to discuss the release of Haswell-E and the X99 platform!! Find us at http://www.pcper.com/live!!

Sometimes writing these reviews can be pretty anti-climactic. With all of the official and leaked information released about Haswell-E over the last six to nine months, there isn't much more to divulge that can truly be called revolutionary. Yes, we are looking at the new king of the enthusiast market with an 8-core processor that not only brings a 33% increase in core count over the previous generation Ivy Bridge-E and Sandy Bridge-E platforms, but also includes the adoption of the DDR4 memory specification, which allows for high density and high speed memory subsystems.

And along with the new processor on a modified socket (though still LGA2011) comes a new chipset with some interesting new features. If you were left wanting for USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt on X79, then you are going to love what you see with X99. Did you think you needed some more SATA ports to really liven up your pool of hard drives? Retail boards are going to have you covered.

Again, just like last time, you will find a set of three processors that are coming into the market at the same time. These offerings range from the $999 price point and go down to the much more reasonable cost of $389. But this time there are more interesting decisions to be made based on specification differences in the family. Do the changes that Intel made in the sub-$1000 SKUs make it a better or worse buy for users looking to finally upgrade?

Haswell-E: A New Enthusiast Lineup from Intel

Today's launch of the Intel Core i7-5960X processor continues on the company's path of enthusiast branded parts that are built off of a subset of the workstation and server market. It is no secret that some Xeon branded processors will work in X79 motherboards and the same is true of the upcoming Haswell-EP series (with its X99 platform) launching today. As an enthusiast though, I think we can agree that it doesn't really matter how a processor like this comes about, as long as it continues to occur well into the future.

The Core i7-5960X processor is an 8-core, 16-thread design built on what is essentially the same architecture we saw released with the mainstream Haswell parts released in June of 2013. There are some important differences of course, including the lack of integrated graphics and the move from DDR3 to DDR4 for system memory. The underlying microarchitecture remains unchanged, though. Previously known as the Haswell-E platform, the Core i7-5960X continues Intel's trend of releasing enthusiast/workstation grade platforms that are based on an existing mainstream architecture.

As you can see there is a big jump between the affordable i7-5820K and the more expensive 5930K. For those who know they will stick with a single GPU or two low to mid-range GPUs the 5820K should be enough for you but if you have any thoughts of upgrading or adding in a number of PCIe SSDs then you might want to seriously consider saving up for the 5930K. Current generation GPUs and SSDs are not fully utilizing PCIe 3.0 16x but that is not likely to remain true for long so if you wish for your system to have some longevity this is certainly something you should think long and hard about. Core counts are up while frequencies are down, the 8 core 5960X has a base clock of 3GHz, a full gigahertz slower than the 4790K but you can expect the monstrous 20MB cache and quad-channel DDR4-2133 to mitigate that somewhat. Also make sure to note that TDP, 140W is no laughing matter and will require some serious cooling.

Introduction

Introduction

Since the introduction of the Haswell line of CPUs, the Internet has been aflame with how hot the CPUs run. Speculation ran rampant on the cause with theories abounding about the lesser surface area and inferior thermal interface material (TIM) in between the CPU die surface and the underside of the CPU heat spreader. It was later confirmed that Intel had changed the TIM interfacing the CPU die surface to the heat spreader with Haswell, leading to the hotter than expected CPU temperatures. This increase in temperature led to inconsistent core-to-core temperatures as well as vastly inferior overclockability of the Haswell K-series chips over previous generations.

A few of the more adventurous enthusiasts took it upon themselves to use inventive ways to address the heat concerns surrounding the Haswell by delidding the processor. The delidding procedure involves physically removing the heat spreader from the CPU, exposing the CPU die. Some individuals choose to clean the existing TIM from the core die and heat spreader underside, applying superior TIM such as metal or diamond-infused paste or even the Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra metal material and fixing the heat spreader back in place. Others choose a more radical solution, removing the heat spreader from the equation entirely for direct cooling of the naked CPU die. This type of cooling method requires use of a die support plate, such as the MSI Die Guard included with the MSI Z97 XPower motherboard.

Whichever outcome you choose, you must first remove the heat spreader from the CPU's PCB. The heat spreader itself is fixed in place with black RTV-type material ensuring a secure and air-tight seal, protecting the fragile die from outside contaminants and influences. Removal can be done in multiple ways with two of the most popular being the razor blade method and the vise method. With both methods, you are attempting to separate the CPU PCB from the heat spreader without damaging the CPU die or components on the top or bottom sides of the CPU PCB.